It's 2141, the weather is savage, energy politics is brutal, and millions of climate refugees from Asia eke out an existence in a greening Australian desert.

Todd, the teenage son of powerful Indigenous energy mogul, Dr Madrigal Phipps, is kidnapped. A furious Dr Phipps gathers her old team from AuZgov Security Services and a renegade hacker, Andaman Marko, to hunt for Todd and his missing neo-Blues band, but both the climate chaos and her shadowy foes are treacherous.

The young people are held captive in a reclusive community in a central Australian gorge, run by a cult of privacy and silence, called the Qwietude. As adolescent tensions of sex and affection escalate, Todd and his friends plan their own escape. They scramble across the ravaged central desert to beat the arrival of the supercharged monsoon, and Todd calls up skills taught by his Indigenous Elders to survive.

Then, out of the blue, Madrigal's 120-year-old father-in-exile calls with an extraordinary request from Kyoto, the only place on the planet where cherry trees still blossom.

Could Todd's disappearance and the Old Man's request be linked? And will the extreme weather prevent Madrigal from rescuing her son?